Significance of visual interfaces in institutional and user-generated databases with category structures

Abstract

In this paper we visually explore the data structure of two different visual platforms: the database behind the social environment of a social networking site, and the intricate infrastructure of a research institute for preservation of deposited datasets. We argue that visual analytics of metadata of collections can be used in multiple ways: for the backend users, to inform the archive about structure and growth of its collection; to foster collection strategies; and to check metadata consistency, for the end-users, to give an overview to the collections, and thus to generate more awareness of the collection and its metadata, to give the enduser extra information to contextualize the entirety of the archive. We conclude with a discussion on how text based search combined with different type of visually enhanced browsing improves data access, navigation, and reuse in these two radically different contexts. © 2012 ACM.